Serifs by Hand

Salmiak is particularly beautiful. Hey, Kemie (we saw each other last at lunch in Mexico City)! Como Estas?

Hey, hey! Look at me. I got two of 'em handscriptyserfiy fonz ya'll talking 'bout.

Stress

Old Tymes

Are images allowed in the comments window?

Yes sir, Armin. As long as they're less than 340 pixels wide. I guess we can make an exception for you.

Salmiak is gorgeous!

What are you talking about, Armin?
The two you have shown are not part of the category Stephen suggested. An untrained hand-rendition of another typographic style is Deuzhood, by Peter Brühn's dad, available at http://www.surfstation.lu
Click on "typeset" and select "Deuzhood". Free to download.

Salmiak is very nice, but it does not have so much concorrents, right? Kosmik is not so nice anyway. It was great for its technological implications, like all the Letterror great stuff, but the design itself must be the weakest among their creations.
My taste, of course.

Claudio - Not sure what you mean about Armin's submissions. They are hand lettered alphabets emulating serif type. The second more than the first, but both apply just fine.

Yes! Deuzhood is a great example of hand drawn blackletter.

Ahem… I think Claudio may be right Coles, my examples are not technically hand-rendered. Although they do fall under my previous descpription of handscriptyserfiy fonts. Feel free to take 'em off. And I will mosey on over to where I do know what I'm talking about. Sorry for 1) the big-ass images and 2) for putting up categorically-incorrect, big-ass images.

Does Fontesque fall in this category? It's only after I saw so many others that I remembered Fontesque.

"Big ass" images fixed.

Fontesque is a bit too wacky, but I might include Oneleigh. Thanks John.

I like Oneleigh.

BTW, I think any really serious "lettering font" has to have contextual alternates.

hhp

Thanks for thinking of Fontesque and Oneleigh -- however, they are not hand drawn faces, but typographically rendered.

Their irregularity should not be equated with a lack of precise, refined finish.

Oneleigh is a 1920s style of face with details like many of Goudy's.

Recent Adobe faces such as Chapparal, Keppler, Brioso, have the same degree of finish, as does Storm's work.

Don't forget House's Flyer Fonts collection.

A couple of them (Release?) are probably photocopied fonts, but Whitehouse is clearly hand lettered.

Hey, Armin: Is Stress something of a variation of what's going on in Tension? If not, it's a bizarre coincidence.

You could say it's a variation (I do like Tension, and it did come before Stress), the main difference between that one and Stress is that Tension does have a "solid" letter from which stem the flourishes (which also have thicks and thins). Stress is all-stroke baby.

>hand lettered fonts that emulate serif type

Stephen -- ironically, your category definition is backwards.

Digitally, ALL fonts are hand lettered.

(We manipulate mouse, keyboard and stylus to create their outlines.) (To be completely logical, the only real hand lettering is when you stick your finger in ink/sand, and write like that -- everything else is tool-lettering.)

EXCEPT those that are made from scans of "hand lettering" in another medium, such as pen on paper.

Perhaps a better description of this category would be "Serifed type with a rough, sketched appearance".

"Rough sketched" is what this genre is all about, otherwise faces like Throhand would be in the category, which is not, I assume, the intent.

How about serif fonts that emulate hand lettering?

That would be tough, given that serifs are -- typically -- a feature of printed type rather than handwriting. Can you imagine how slow cursive would be if you had to draw in a whole bunch of serifs on every word?

>How about serif fonts that emulate hand lettering?

If you are using the term "hand lettering" to mean "roughly sketched," why not say so?

Your list does not include elegant scripts or "handcrafted" display faces such as Throhand, Eldorado or Village.

"Hand lettering" is an imprecise term that leads to confusion.

On the one hand, all glyphs in all fonts are hand lettered.

But by "hand lettering" you seem to be here referring only to lettering that looks rough and loose, either because it is created by one handheld analog tool -- the pen/brush, but without the steadying influence of another -- compasses, ruler, template; or because it was created without professional slickness.

Oh dear. I guess we'll just have to let my list of fonts describe what I was looking for. If you look at them all you get a pretty good idea.

Eclogues by Chester

Yes, although the category is very clear in my mind I would have never included neither Fontesque or Oneleigh in the list, they have nothing to do with it, and I’m very grateful for Nick’s clean cut explanations.

For a definition, what would you think of:

“rough/unstable (trained or untrained) hand-rendition of traditional typographically conscious styles” (specifically serif, here).

A related category of this belonged to my in-progress classification attempt of contemporary type, from some 8 years ago was:

Unstable Scripts

Typefaces that, instead of well-written and/or constructed are dabbled or scribbled with the occasional presence of additional decorative elements. Not always calligraphic (in the usual sense of connected and unconnected scripts), their “script” nature comes from their “freewheel” rendering.

examples: Contrivance, Motion and Remedy by Frank Heine, Mogadischu by Cornel Windlin and Chicken from Garagefonts.

Other categories of my own from circa 1996-1999 (with some notes), I stopped long ago, I’d like to know what do you think, it may be useful whenever I’ll try it again. We may do a small thread at typophile, if you like:

Interfering

Typefaces where imperfection, irregularity and additional information as constitutive (a) or decorative (b) elements overwhelm or trouble the underlying basic structure of the letters, at a degree that undermines the clarity of the alphabetical signs.

examples: Jesus Loves You, Nebulae and Punten by Lucas De Groot, Reactor by Tobias Frere-Jones, LushUs by Jeffery Keedy, Inexpressed by Claudio Piccinini, Fleur by Kivart/iAi, F2F Haakonsen by Stefan Hauser, MediaPigeons by Martin Wenzel.

Neo-Geometric

Typefaces based on a structural conception of typography, as the experimentations of the early 20th century avant-gardes. A strong and simple geometry is used to build up letters but without any research of an “essential alphabetic system”. Their characterization does not deny the presence of decorative elements. In some cases it’s quite dependant on the technology environment in which the alphabets have been generated.

examples: the early Neville Brody and Max Kisman types, designed in the 1980s, many Pierre Di Sciullo and early Emigre releases designed by Zuzana Licko, such as Emperor, Lunatix, Modula, Senator and Narly, as well as Neo Theo by Jeffery Keedy. Most of bitmap-aesthetic inspired faces.

Destructural

Typefaces based on the destructuration of one or more pre-existing typefaces which are dismantled and reorganized (a) or simply rearranged (b) in the design of new ones. The process is similar to the one used in electronic music, where samples are taken from pre-existing songs or compositions to combine or use them in new ones.

examples: Fudoni by Max Kisman, Dead History by P. Scott Makela, Prototype by Jonathan Barnbrook, AddMorph by Brian Schorn, International Disgrace by Rodney Shelden Fehsenfeld, The Royal Family by Patric Giasson.

—would a typeface fall in this cathegory even if drawn from scratch (i.e. conceptually destructural, like Newlyn’s Democratica) rather than “sampled”?

I'd like to point out that commercial releases of Destructural faces like Emigre's Dead History and FontFont Fudoni have been redrawn anyway, and they do not use actual digital data from their "parents".
That's one of the reasons for which Emigre never released AddMorph by Schorn, in the end. Because Schorn sampled the outlines of Adobe's Trajan when he designed AddMorph for his personal use (and custom use by Carson in Ray Gun), so, since there was not enough interest in redesigning the Trajan letters as building blocks, the idea was dropped.
More or less, from what I recall. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Bless you, Claudio. Thank you for proving I am not as sick as I thought.

Claudio, good stuff!

The AddMorph story is funny: I did the same sort of thing to Trajan (independently)*, and submitted it to Emigre as well! But probably a year or two too late... Anyway, their first question was: Did you reuse the actual outlines?! A bit too obsessive for my tastes, as it was obviously still just a "proposal" at that point - the value is in the idea, not the raw data. BTW, many people have sinced asked to buy Trajic notRoman from me, and I've said no.

* http://www.themicrofoundry.com/ss_trajic.html

hhp

Hrant, you should finish the Trajic (what a great name) package, as a normal Trajan caps face, and with your own alternates, so that people can mix and match. If you don't publish it yourself, I'm sure you could find a publisher easily.

I don't believe it would be "a year or two too late" because you never know what typographers are going to do with fonts.

Why don't you want to sell it?

I don't want to sell it as-is because the effort to complete it (including ridding it of any trace of the original Trajan outlines) I don't think would be paid off in sales from my own little foundry. A larger house with more volume I think would make it worthwhile (although then you do lose in royalties, I guess).

In any case, thanks for the encouragement!

hhp

Here's another: Fiddlesticks.

Oops, I meant "Fiddlestix."

Thank you Mark. You get it!

You already told me about Trajic, Hrant (I love it).
Sooner or later I’ll design my personal version of the archetipal Trajan model to be hacked by every designer wishing to do a conceptual (or not) work out of it.
On my part I’d like to design my first Hebrew Mimic, (I’ve said it, now I’ll have to do it, at least before I die).
And now, all you ooh-so-nice friends from all over the world, have a look at the very first non-Roman Mimic (to my knowledge) I’ve encountered recently: the Japanese (Katakana) Mimic Tanrei by Eiji Sunaga. Download from Maniackers Design and enjoy!
For those doubtful about what a Roman Mimic *is* just have a look at your beloved MTV or the like that to see “joyful” examples of Western cultural appropriation without any depth, knowledge or taste.

Tanrei -- I would have to say that's pretty respectful.

So surely some Roman Mimics are OK?

I think I'd like Tanrei better if it were less respectful. ;-) There are some amazing glyphs there. Its "ho", for example, is actually very nice, yes.

"Its "ho", for example, is actually very nice, yes."

To think I studied japanese for a year and I still can't remeber the name of a single character.

Tanrei is really lovely!

I'm not sure I get your right, Nick, but Tanrei is not a Roman Mimic (like Wonton, to quote some oldschool design, or the contemporary and otherwise excellent Circumcision by Matius Gerardo Grieck). Tanrei is the opposite: a Japanese KK Mimic, using parts of Latin letters of a certain style. I am totally unfamiliar with Japanese but I enormously appreciate the effort.
With types as Tanrei, the servile relationship to Roman forms is balanced. :)

Claudio, Tanrei appears to be a mimic like Wonton, but with a more "authentic" or sympathetic rendition of the parodied/referenced culture's media.

Does that make it OK, like Debussy's "Girl With the Flaxen Hair"-- a Scottish-style "appropriation", yet done with impeccable taste?

Is it only degree of artistry separates mockery from homage?

> With types as Tanrei, the servile
> relationship to Roman forms is balanced.

No, that's something else.

hhp

Some years back some award annual (TDC or JTA or some other, not quite sure) included someone's "Chinese Bodoni." It was very interesting. I have it somewhere, but unfortunately I can't find it right now.

If you have the Solotype Catalog from Dover Publications, there are several dozen Roman-letter-in-Asian-idiom fonts, both Chinese and Japanese. I seem to recall T26 has at least one based on Korean Hangul (bubblescript) characters.

Chinese Bodoni?
Yeah, I think it was called "Fihua Tsu-Fehua" or some such thing.

Am I still unclear? Wonton (and the ones mentioned by John Butler) were Roman Mimics, while Tanrei is a Japanese Mimic. Whether Tanrei is more sympathetic to its Roman "parent" and how much it manages to retain Katakana forms I can't say, since I'm not so familar with them as of now.
I just appreciate, after so many decades of more or less interesting Roman Mimics, to see the opposite happening.
And I was trying to be optimistic, with a smile, about the increase of respect towards other alphabets, Hrant. I am quite sure Sunaga did Tanrei moslty out of fun. Many Roman Mimics collected in the Solotype catalogs mentioned by John are done with care, so, to answer Nick, it's not a mere matter of artistry to me, but from the degree of care you maybe can have a guess on how much the designer was interested in the original forms of his/her non-native alphabet. Difficult to tell, anyway.
By the way, Roman Mimics are one of the things which increased my love for type when I was a teenager, and, while I may now dislike the "anything goes" attitude most of the old ones have, I am in debt to their designers.
Grieck's Circumcision and CQN Molecular (contemporary Roman Mimics based on Hebrew letters' archetipal traits) had interesting conceptual premises behind them, and they have been appreciated by the Hebrew eye of my friend Oded Ezer as well. I hope to rework and build up my old book idea. Oded should have been the writer of the essay on Circumcision. The typeface, not the practice ;)

Good people - this is a great topic, but not the topic you are commenting under. Please start a new discussion about faux non-latin scripts here or at Typophile.

Claudio:
1) Can you please define "mimic"?
2) Please use some paragraph breaks.

--

BTW, I think Fusaka deserves a mention here.

hhp

I'd like to see "Fihua Tsu-Fehua" or whatever is called.
In the meantime, most of the Roman Mimics John was talking about are from the Dover book "Special Effects and Topical Alphabets", selected by Dan X. Solo.
They are: Azteca (loosely inspired by Aztec imagery), Chinatown, Chopstick and Fantan (very loosely inspired by Chinese imagery), Ideograph (based on/inspired by Chinese ideograms, this was quite good), Moses Condensed (based on/inspired by Hebrew alphabet forms), Moskow (loosely based on some clarendonesque Cyrillic forms), Scimitar (loosely inspired by Arabic, but without real connections to the Arabic alphabet), Shalimar (inspired by Indian language alphabets, mostly Hindi I think), Shalom (same as Moses, above), Siamese (inspired by Thai alphabet, quite cute although not so well drawn), Sukigaki (this seems to be the basis of Fung Foo and Fufanu, by Lee Basford & James Glover, the T-26 faces mentioned by John) Timbuctu (again of Arabic/Persian inspiration, this one is nicer) and Xerxes (loosely insipred by Greek iconography).

Ehi! We are off-topic!

With Mimic I mean an alphabet imitating another alphabet's general graphic features/structure/feel (with more or less care or depth). The Fusaka you mentioned is what I call a Roman Mimic.
And Stephen preceeded me, of course we are off-topic (sorry, sorry, sorry!)

> Fusaka you mentioned is
> what I call a Roman Mimic.

?
Fusaka is a Latin font that looks Japanese.

BTW, there are terms for that stuff, like "Latinized", "Hellenized", etc. And I think "mimic" is ambiguous.

hhp

But "Mimic" can be used either way, while with "Latinized" and "Hellenized", "Japanized", you'd need a term for each script. And an "Hellenized" could be mistaken for the Greek version of an existing Roman typeface.
Anyway the depth of my English knowledge is not so great, so if Nick (which is British/Canadian) or some other has a better term than Mimic I'd appreciate suggestions. I trust your judgment, Hrant, because your English is surely way better than mine, but maybe Nick could offer a good evaluation. Later on maybe, anyway, here we are "invading" Stephen's post.
Sorry again!

> you'd need a term for each script

Yes, and a font could be called "Latinized Armenian". But "mimic" assumes one of the components is always Latin, otherwise you'd need three words, like "Roman Japanese mimic" - and isn't that confusing?

hhp

Sorry Claudio, my little joke was a bit obscure (or badly rendered): Fihua Tsu-Fehua = Filosofia. Chinese Bodoni! Get it? (Exit stage left under barrage of ripe tomatoes.)

>Yes, and a font could be called “Latinized Armenian”. But “mimic” assumes one of the components is always Latin, otherwise you’d need three words, like “Roman Japanese mimic” - and isn’t that confusing?

In general, I would call X-Mimic, a face which uses parts/features of another script to build an alphabet of X script kind.
e.g. a Japanese Mimic is not related to Roman, because it could try to "mimic" another script (not Roman). Tanrei "mimics" a Roman Copperplate connected script, but this is not a rule.
You could always specify with the third word (as needed) which Script has been "copied".
I find this less confusing than "Hellenized" or "Latinized", because this seems to address a more subtle, typographically conscious treatment of text-aimed types (like your Patria/Nour system). Get it? Still open to suggestions, Nick.